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My story began in Brainerd Park on the south side of Chicago. My mother left when I was a baby, and my dad was in and out of jail, so it was up to my grandmother Lillie to raise me.
My grandmother was a very spiritual woman who loved Jesus and made us go to church on Sundays. I would always go with her, but that’s where it stopped. The other six days of the week, I was running with a gang. By sixth grade, I was selling drugs, and, by seventh grade, I was going to school drunk.
Seven-footers stand out in a crowd. Wichita State junior Garrett Stutz has understood that for several years now, and it’s something his basketball opponents have to deal with every time they take the floor against the Shockers. Last season, the Kansas City, Mo., native hit his stride on the court, closing the season by earning All-Tournament honors in the MVC Tournament. This season, Stutz is working on cultivating a spiritual stature that rivals his physical frame as part of the FCA leadership team at WSU.
Texas Tech Head Women’s Basketball Coach Kristy Curry didn’t have to wait long for coaching success. Before taking over the program in Lubbock in 2006, Curry led the Purdue Boilermakers all the way to the 2001 NCAA National Championship game in her second season as a head coach and, in doing so, became only the second head coach in NCAA history to reach the title game so early in her career. Now 10 years later and five states to the south, Curry is pursuing more championships on the court while also investing in the spiritual lives of athletes via the school’s FCA Huddle.
Last month I had a conversation with FCA President Les Steckel, who posed the following hypothetical situation.
“Jimmy,” he said, “what if I handed you the keys to a brand new car when you turned 16? How would you feel? And what if I then told you that it was the only car you would ever own and that it would have to last your entire life? Would that change the way you treated it? I bet it would. I believe it would radically change the way you took care of that car.”
“This is the end of me.”
That was the only thought that raced through the mind of Middle Tennessee State University jumper Sarah Nambawa when, on Dec. 31, 2009, she tore her posterior cruciate ligament while training for an upcoming meet.
This was not good.
Training camp was less than a month away, and Reed Doughty’s right hand resembled one of those oversized “We’re No. 1” foam fingers.
Last June, the Washington Redskins’ safety arrived as the keynote speaker at the Metro Maryland FCA Power Camp in Gaithersburg, Md., with a heavily bandaged hand that kept his index finger perpetually extended. A day earlier while weightlifting, he had pinched his finger between two dumbbells.
“You tell it. You’re so much better at telling it than me. I always leave out too many details.” Landry Jones scoots back deeper into the couch in the middle of FCA Area Representative Kent Bowles’ sports room. He’s surrounded by everything a college athlete could find comforting: a ping pong table, framed college football jerseys, a gumball machine and his girlfriend: OU shooting guard Whitney Hand.
He’s the man who replaced the man. And that’s really all most people know about him. It’s an old axiom in coaching that you should never replace a popular coach because it will be difficult if not impossible to live up to their standard. Indianapolis Colts’ Head Coach Jim Caldwell stepped directly into that situation when his predecessor, Tony Dungy—possibly the most recognizable Christian coach of this era—removed his headset for the final time after the 2008 season.
I was coaching a junior high boy’s basketball team and having a great time. During one game, however, the team was not executing well. I called a time-out and gave the boys a lecture while they sat on the bench. I paused to see if my message was getting through. And that’s when the starting center, a team leader, broke the silence with a goofy imitation of me. He mimicked several of my phrases and the other players were a little nervous about what my reaction would be. I decided to laugh, so the whole team laughed along with me. These were boys who loved to have fun. Scripture says that there is a time for everything (Ec 3:1). There is certainly a time for discipline and teaching, but there are countless opportunities for fun and laughter too.
We were in the regional finals of the Virginia high school golf tournament. I was a first year golf coach. My player, Gabe, was tied for the individual championship and was playing in the final round against the defending champion. He had just birdied the thirteenth hole to take a one shot lead with five holes to play.
I suddenly realized that I wasn’t sure what to say or do. Even though I had coached and officiated over a twenty-year period, I had never been a golf coach. Basketball and soccer were my forte. What strategy do you offer in a solitary sport like golf to a young man who must perform alone under pressure? Coaches are supposed to know everything and be ready in any situation. I felt I had little to offer.
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